Thais Examine Pol Pot's Corpse

Military Officials Satisfied Heart Attack Was Not A Khmer Ruse

April 18, 1998|By KEITH B. RICHBURG The Washington Post

BANGKOK, Thailand _ — A Thai military team on Friday took fingerprints, clipped hair samples and photographed the teeth of the deceased Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, and former comrades who had denounced him said they would cremate the remains of Cambodia's hated ``Brother Number One'' today.

The team's inspection, which included wrapping the body in a dark plastic tarpaulin and covering it with ice, was meant to allay lingering suspicions that reports of Pol Pot's death from a heart attack might be a Khmer Rouge ruse. After the inspection, military officials said they were satisfied that the body laid out on a wooden slab in a steamy Cambodian jungle hut was that of Pol Pot, and they said no autopsy or further tests were needed.

The guerrilla movement's quick cremation of the body was meant to show the world that the group has distanced itself from its longtime leader and the genocidal policies that led to the deaths of an estimated 1.5 million to 1.7 million Cambodians in the 1970s. ``With Pol Pot's death, the Khmer Rouge can be spared of further international criticism and condemnation,'' a senior Khmer Rouge official said.

But few people seemed to agree with the Khmer Rouge assessment that Pol Pot's death closes the chapter on the movement's murderous past. World leaders, including President Clinton, said other surviving Khmer Rouge leaders must be brought to justice. ``We must not permit the death of the most notorious of Khmer Rouge leaders to deter us from the equally important task of bringing these others to justice,'' Clinton said in Santiago, Chile.

That call was echoed on Friday by Thomas Hammarberg, U.N. special human rights representative for Cambodia. He said the Geneva-based U.N. Human Rights Commission soon would take steps to set up an international tribunal for Cambodian genocide trials.

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer also called for other Khmer Rouge leaders to be apprehended and tried, and in Paris, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said France would be ready to study any Cambodian request to set up a panel.

In Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital, government spokesman Khieu Kanarith said the government would continue to woo defectors from hard-core Khmer Rouge holdouts battling government troops at their last jungle redoubt in northern Cambodia near the Thai border.

``We will persuade whoever can be persuaded to defect,'' Kanarith said. But he also said the Khmer Rouge's other notorious leaders _ including Nuon Chea, Khieu Samphan and Ta Mok, the current commander known as ``the Butcher'' _ must be apprehended and compelled to face charges for crimes against humanity.

With the final 1,500 to 2,000 Khmer Rouge hard-liners pressed against the Thai border and rapidly losing ground, Thailand has emerged as the most likely conduit for apprehension of Khmer Rouge leaders. But on Friday in Bangkok, Foreign Minister Surin Pitsuwan said that ``no government has expressed by name any individual it wants.''

But in a television interview later, Surin suggested that Thailand would be willing to help apprehend any wanted Khmer Rouge leaders on a case-by-case basis and once a legal foundation is established.

Yet any attempt to prosecute Khmer Rouge leaders before an international tribunal is likely to raise troubling questions, particularly given the large number of former Khmer Rouge defectors now allied with the government or occupying senior positions. Cambodian strongman Hun Sen was a Khmer Rouge battalion commander in the eastern zone near Vietnam before he defected to escape one of Pol Pot's early purges, as did the current National Assembly Chairman Chea Sim, a former Khmer Rouge division chief.

As Cambodians and the world came to grips with the death of Pol Pot, chief architect of the ``killing fields,'' reaction ranged from relief to anger that with him died many unanswered questions about the roots of his brutality and his fanatical, bloody revolution.

One question raised when the corpse was displayed on Thursday was why it had jet black hair; the most recent photographs and video taken of Pol Pot last October by American journalist Nate Thayer showed white hair. On Friday, Non Nou, who had guarded Pol Pot since his arrest last year, said the Khmer Rouge leader dyed his hair black the day before he died. He said Pol Pot feared he would have to flee his hideout and wanted to avoid being recognized.

Thai officials who examined the body said they saw no evidence of foul play.

As the Thai team worked, the little wooden shack was shaken by the sound of rocket and mortar fire as the government's war against the remaining Khmer Rouge holdouts continued.